Wednesday Mindless Dump

Starting campuses sadly puts my blog on the back burner sometimes, but as much as I love the blog, Multi Site is what keeps me awake at night, not my blog. So thanks for hanging in with me. So whats on my mind right now?

1. Really excited about what’s going in the Multi Site ministry.

2. We’re currently working on our temporary facility to get the Alice Campus ready to start meeting on Sunday’s.

3. We’ve gathered about 70-80 people who are interested in being a part of a BAF Alice Campus.

4. So proud of the Multi Site ministry for how we’ve saved so much money for future campuses! Every campus tithes weekly into our Multi Site account for just that purpose.

5. Padre Island is doing fantastic, and we’ve been able to solve our main problem of ceiling height with dual side screens. So much better now!

6. Pastor Dave Cotham is doing an amazing job out there. The PI campus is so about helping start other campuses. So thankful for all that is happening out there.

7. Never cease to be amazed at the job Pastor Rudy Garcia is doing at our Kingsville Campus. Pastor Rudy is 22 folks! What an amazing young leader!

8. Pastor Jason Curlee is tearing it up at our 5 Points Campus! I am blown away by what him and his team have been able to do with what was an old worn out metal building. They have transformed that place into a beautiful house of God.

9. Worship at the Multi Site Campuses is unfreakingbelievable. Is that actually a word? If not it should be. The quality of worship has exploded under the leadership of our Multi Site Worship Director Joey Davila. No way this happens without Joey joining our team.

10. Somehow we keep this machine rolling, and that’s in large part because of our MS Ministry Assistant Kyrah Hopkins. Not sure how she does it, but somehow she keeps all of us boneheads in order. We couldn’t do this without her!

11. We should have Alice meeting regularly in less than a month which will take us to 5 Campuses total, 4 being Multi Sites. A year ago we had one MS Campus. Wow, I’m leading this and that still blows me away. Amazing what God can do through a bunch of people crazy enough to believe He can do anything!

12. We have never waited until we had all the money we needed in place before starting a new campus. If we would have waited until all the money was place before moving forward on these,  we would be one campus instead of five. Every one of these campuses has been built on the faith that God will provide if we’ll just start moving! That is one of the things about Pastor Bil that I love the most, he lives by faith!

13. Really excited to have Jim Tumberlin with Third Quarter Consulting coming down to hang with us for a few days in June. Jim is one of the smartest Multi Site guys in the country, and he’s coming to hang with us! I am so excited to have him join our Multi Site Staff meeting that week. We are going to learn a ton from him and I can’t wait!

14. Pumped about taking my team to the Innovation Exchange in San Antonio in June. I love hanging with this amazing team, because they are more than my employees, they’re my friends. Were going to have a blast.

15. Very pumped about and upcoming event at BAF. A group is using our church to film the third or fourth version of Thou Shalt Laugh which will be recorded and sold all over the world. We’re just hosting the event so our people get a free night of some amazing comedians. John Tesh will be hosting.

16. Also really stoked about Michael Franzese coming to BAF for a weekend in June. He is a former Captain in a Mafia Crime Family who found Jesus. His story will blow you away. He will be preaching at all the services one weekend. I’ll pick up John Tesh from the airport one week, then the next week I’ll pick up Michael Franzese. Talk about worlds colliding, WOW! lol  Going to be cool meeting them both!

17. Really proud of my twin 17 year old sons. Cory is heading to Austin at the end of the month to compete in State in classical guitar, and he also serves on leadership staff in the Element Student Ministry in their Worship Dept! Cody is an honors student at Carroll High School with a 98 average taking all AP Classes. Most of all I’m proud because they’re both sold out to Jesus! I’m getting chills just writing that!

18. Then theres the my little guy Caleb, I will be 50 in June and he is 4, don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor.lol He is a mini tornado blowing his way through our lives at Mach 10. Cant imagine my life without him!

19. How cool is it that my wife is also my best friend! I love April with all my heart and she is truly a blessing to our family.

20. BAF is going live on national television in a few weeks. Very exciting because we’ve been working on this for probably a year. Our first show will air on The Church Channel which for now is only on Direct TV, but we should be following that up a few months later with some spots on Daystar.

21. I’m truly thankful for leaders in my life like Geoff Surratt and Jim Tumberlin. To have leaders who I can talk to who have accomplished what these guys have in Multi Site, is a huge blessing from God! I need all the help I can get! lol

22. I’m so thankful for all the ministry friends I have made through Twitter. There are so many leaders tearing it up for God all over this country I would never have known had it not been for the relationships we’ve built on Twitter. If you’re a pastor, I challenge you to join Twitter! Yes it will take some of that time you don’t think you have, but the relationships you’ll build with other leaders around the country, will be worth that time.

OK enough rambling! This is what is going on in my pea brain today, hope something in it interests you!

John

Amazing Alice Core Group Meeting

Tuesday night we gathered the Alice Core Group together to share a meal at a local restaurant.  At the three previous gatherings we had 30 or so at the most, but this time we really challenged the group to invite their friends and neighbors. They did just that as 65 people showed up. Man that place was packed to the brim, and it was great. The staff at El Jalisciense was simply amazing. If you’re ever in Alice stop and have a meal there, you won’t regret it!

The energy in the room was off the charts as everyone laughed and fellowshipped over some bad to the bone Mexican Food. Really, is it possible have a bad meeting when Mexican Food is involved! The best part was that the room was full of new faces, and we were still missing some our regulars who couldn’t make it for different reasons.

After dinner I took a moment to speak to the group then asked Pastor Bil to share with them as well. Bil has been out there 3 times and it has made a huge difference because those folks know he truly cares about their church. We also had a chance to introduce Newell Atkinson to everyone. Most of the people already knew him, but what they didn’t know was, he is going to build us a building and lease it to us because there was nothing available in Alice that would work for us.

We will first move into a 1,800 sq ft facility Mr. Atkinson already has and make it work as best as possible until the permanent structure is ready. I was concerned where we were going to put all the kids during that time, so he decided he would have two temporary buildings he owns hauled to the back of the building so can use them for kids until we’re ready to move into our permanent structure. Man has God been moving in Mr Atkinson’s heart. He is in our prayers and we are praying for God to continue blessing this man and his business big time.

So thats where we are on Multi Site #4. Things are moving fast and God has made it beyond clear that He wants a BAF church in Alice, so me and the MS team will just keep pushing forward. Sometime in early June we will have our first official Sunday morning service at BAF Alice. Keep praying for us because this is going to be a big job, and it has been made perfectly clear to me and my team that, in a little Texas lingo, Satan ain’t happy about it.

John

Celebrating the Wins

If you’re in ministry you know how hard it is to look backwards at anything, because next Sunday is always looming large. I know I’ve experienced that, so we have made a change in the way we do our Monday morning Multi Site Staff meeting. Each week we open with prayer, then we start off by letting each staff member take time to celebrate their wins. This often adds an hour to our meeting, and it’s worth every minute of it.

This morning Jason Curlee who is the Pastor at our 5 Points Campus, shared how he had been praying about the scripture that says, “they added to their numbers daily,” and in the last three weekends, seven people per weekend have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ at his campus. Some say numbers don’t matter, 21 people at 5 Points would beg to differ, and we celebrated, because each of those 21 numbers represents a person who will spend eternity in Heaven.

Pastor Dave shared how they had six new couples show up this weekend because someone from the Padre Island Campus invited them. Six new couples is a win by itself, but the fact that they were invited by Padre Island campus people, means the church is taking ownership, and anyone in ministry knows that’s a win.

Pastor Bil got caught up in weather in Dallas on Saturday and missed his flight to Corpus which meant we did not have a DVD for the campuses for Sunday. Pastor Rudy from our Kingsville Campus talked about how God moved as he preached live directly from the scriptures he just happened to be studying in the last few days. It ended up being a God moment set apart for one man whose wife had been trying to get him to come to church for a very long time, and this happened to be that weekend he finally showed up. The message that Pastor Rudy admittedly felt unprepared to preach, was for this man who doesn’t like to go to church, but will be back next week because the message touched him so deeply.

Joey Davila, our Director of Multi Site Worship, shared how he was playing at our Padre Island Campus this weekend and everyone was so well prepared that they finished practice with over and hour to spare. He decided to sit down and pray over them and was overwhelmed by the struggles each were going through that he may never have known about had practice not gone so well. Praying over these selfless servants was a major win.

I was able to share the win of how God has stepped up to bless us big time at our newest campus location in Alice. I’ll share more on this later, but God stepped up in a huge way and we celebrated it.

Had we not been willing to add an hour to our staff meeting, these amazing wins would have gone uncelebrated, and maybe we wouldn’t have taken time to acknowledge the enormity of who our God is and what He is doing in this ministry. We laughed our brains out, we praised God like crazy, we celebrated the wins, and we had a blast doing it.

Are you celebrating the wins with your teams? If not you might want to give it a try because it’s awesome!

Pastor John

The Power of a Team

One of the things I’ve been reminded about as I have taken on the leadership role over the Multi Site Ministry, is the power of a “Team.” Nowhere in the Bible does God tell us to go it alone. Sure God sent a few people out into the desert alone, but He didn’t leave them there. I don’t know how, or if it’s even  possible, to grow a church without an amazing team.

Taking on the Multi Site Ministry at BAF has been a huge, yet awesome journey. Starting two new Campuses last year stretched my leadership, my skill set, my time, and my family. But in spite of all the obstacles we faced, and there were plenty, we have two new churches that both have around 250 people who regularly attend and call these campuses their church home. Since July of 08 almost 200 people have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ at these two campuses. I am blown away by what God has done at these two new campuses, but one thing I know for sure, none of this would have happened without the amazing Multi Site team.

At our 5 Points Campus, God blessed us with an amazing campus pastor named Jason Curlee who came to us with tons of experience. There is no way I could have pulled off the huge construction project we undertook, completely with volunteers, without Jason by my side. Then on top of having an amazing campus pastor, God blessed us with some amazing families that stepped up and sacrificed in a huge way to get BAF 5 Points up and running. Night after night for four months the place was full of men, women, students, and children, all working like crazy to build their church. This project doesn’t happen without this amazing team.

I doubt if we would have even got started out on Padre Island if Pastor Dave, our Hometeams Pastor, hadn’t stepped up to take the lead so I could focus on the 5 Points build out. Pastor Dave leads a Hometeam ministry with a couple of hundred small groups in it, yet he took this on because he’s a team player. Padre Island is doing great because Dave surrounded himself with an amazing team. There is an awesome group of people out there who selflessly left the main church campus that they loved so much, because they want to reach their own community for Jesus Christ. Most of these people have been attending the Corpus Campus for many years so this wasn’t a small sacrifice.

One of the key factors in these two campuses being up and running, is the willingness of Pastor Rudy and the Kingsville team to allow themselves to be put on the back burner for most of the year so we could focus on the two new sites. Kingsville has been up and running for a couple of years, so for most of the year Pastor Rudy and his team have pretty much been on their own. They did it with a smile, and they did it well, because they’re part of a team.

As a member of the Management Staff here at BAF, I have watched each one of the Management Staff Pastors step up and support this project with their unique expertise in their own areas. They’ve done so, because were a team.

Then comes the people of BAF. They have stepped up to support the Multi Site Ministry by showing up to work, bringing food for those working, praying for us like crazy, and helping us pay for them.

And last but certainly not least is Pastor Bil, who has supported this with every ounce of his heart. He didn’t just speak the vision from the stage, he has stepped up to make sure it happens, and to make sure we had everything we needed to be successful.

I knew I couldn’t do this alone so I surrounded myself with a great team. If you want to change the world for Jesus Christ, surround yourself with a great team, and you’ll be blown away by what God can do through them.

John

Welcome to the New PastorJohnAtkinson.com

Hey Friends,

As of today it is finally done. I have moved over from Typepad to WordPress. I’m excited to be here because one of my Campus Pastors, Jason Curlee, is a big WordPress guy and he is going to help this blog be better than it has been in the past. I’m not much of a computer guy so Jason is going to be a big help. Thanks Jason for all you’ve already done!

We planted our first Multi Site at BAF over three years ago, but last year we began pursing a full blown Multi Site Ministry and added two more sites. We are currently working on two more now, so I’ve been pretty swamped and it’s affected the blog. I’m going to try to take the time to better share our journey this year. Thanks to all those who have stuck with me and welcome to all of you who are new.

Looking forward to getting to know you all through your comments. Also join me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/johncatkinson.

John

Unpacking Multi Site Pitfall #6

Multi Site Pitfall #6 Creating Great Worship in Multiple Venues is One Seriously Tough Gig!

This is the last of the 6 Multi Site Pitfalls that we are unpacking. This should be short because frankly I know nothing about music, but what I do know as someone who oversees multiple campuses that have worship, it’s tough to reproduce great worship over and over because great musicians are hard to find!

I believe good worship is a very important part of a successful multi site strategy. I think everyone would agree that bad music is uncomfortable for anyone who has ever sat through it, and if it’s bad enough it can actually keep people from worshiping, or even worse from coming back.

The temptation when adding sites, is to either use some of the main campus musicians at other sites at a different time, or use the original campus leadership to build and manage a new band. We did both when we started our first campus which was fine for a while, but over time it began to take its toll on both leaders and musicians, and had we stuck to that plan, it would ultimately have begun to affect the worship at the original campus. We were wearing out our leaders and musicians because we were asking them to add too much to their already hectic schedules.

Last year we moved one of our worship leaders (Joey Davila) over from main campus to be the Director of Multi Site Worship. That was huge for the Multi Site ministry because Joey added a major skill set that was missing from the ministry, and that move has taken worship at the sites, as Ed Young would say, to a whole nutha level!

When looking at your long term vision for adding campuses, I would challenge you to think through this pitfall because reproducing great worship over and over is really tough. I know you probably can’t add a Director of Multi Site Worship from day one, we didn’t either, but part of the reason I’ve been writing these posts is to help others prepare for the things that caught us off guard, and this was one of those things. Thinking ahead about the person who might fill this role will really benefit the ministry especially if your vision is to start multiple sites.

As I write this we are 24 hours away from our first core group meeting at what will be our fourth multi site campus, and with this site, we are going into a town where very few people already attend BAF. This will be probably our toughest attempt at creating great worship because we don’t already know a single musician in this town. As the Multi Site Pastor, I can’t imagine taking on this task without Joey on my team! I’m writing this in hopes it will challenge you to start thinking about this position before you need it, not after it begins to overwhelm you like it did us.

Unpacking Multi Site Pitfall #5

Multi Site Pitfall #5: Adding sites will stretch your churches finances.

As I do with each pitfall, let me say again that we don’t have all the Multi Site answers. As we unpack each of these pitfalls please understand that these posts comes from our own experiences starting the BAF Multi Site Ministry. Many churches are doing it bigger and better, and we learn from them all the time, this series of posts is just us sharing our journey with you in hopes it will help you get started on your Multi Site journey.

Multi Site pitfall #5 is a no brainer. Anyone who is thinking about going multi site obviously is thinking out the financial burden associated with it. But here’s the kicker, we thought it out too, and it still overwhelmed us in ways we could never have imagined.

I have been a part of starting three and soon to be four campuses. Three of the four as the Multi Site Pastor, and one in a support role as a management staff pastor, and I have under estimated the cost of each campus, each time. You’d think I would learn wouldn’t you. The problem is, and take notes here, you can’t predict everything that will happen when you start a church. For example; we did a fairly good job of staying within a budget I had set for our 5 Points Campus last summer. However, we had never had a full house before because we hadn’t had any services yet. That was until we had our first service and filled the room completely up and realized we were about 5000 tons AC short of what we needed. We’re not all that smart, but even a couple of rocket scientists like us know that a couple of hundred people in a room that is 91 degrees is not a good thing. The mistake was made when someone we mistakenly assumed knew said, “you’ve got plenty of AC,” and we believed them. So we had to add and AC which most of you know isn’t cheap. But that’s not the end of it, when we went to the AC guy he told us we didn’t have enough electricity available to add another AC, so we had to add another electrical box outside to boot. The owner of the building agreed to split the cost, something he didn’t have to do, and it still cost us another $5000, that we of course had not budgeted for. Talk about your swing and a miss! So going into a multi site start up just remember this, your start up will cost more, and take longer than your best estimate.

Past start up is where the real fun begins. In most cases, there are some exceptions even in our system, a campus will take probably six months to as long as a year to become financially healthy. It takes time to build a core group of people who are sold out to the vision and are ready to step up and start supporting it financially. Sure we all know a tithe is for God and should be given from day one, but sadly that’s not reality. In the meantime the supporting church must be willing to float the campus until it gets healthy. Our first campus took a long time to get completely healthy, and other ministry leaders paid a price as they heard no a lot. I can’t tell you how many tough discussions we had about our first campuses finances. There’s a lesson in our mistakes, prepare your staff ahead of time so the impending financial struggles don’t catch them off guard.

Adding sites will not only drain your finances, it will also drain your financial people. Adding sites will add a lot of work to your financial team. When you add sites you add budgets, bills, insurances, repairs, and staff, and someone has to manage all of it. In our case not only was our team trying to manage all the extra work created by adding a site, they were also trying to keep afloat a campus that was sucking the financial life out of every ministry in the church. I’m thankful they hung in there with us at that campus, because now it’s completely self sufficient and close to 300 people a weekend now call it their church home. Just preparing our staff ahead of time for these struggles would have made a huge difference.

I’m not trying to talk anyone out of going multi site, in fact I hope every church in America does it, I’m just trying to help you be better prepared for what it takes to do it. If your financial team knows ahead of time that these kinds of things may happen, they will be better prepared when they do. I don’t know about your financial people, but ours hate surprises!

Unpacking Multi Site Pitfall #4

MS Pitfall #4 Someone On Your Staff Will Need to Champion the Multi Site Ministry

I always want to start these off the same way in case someone is reading this post not having read the others. We do not have the Multi Site equation down. We are not the end all experts in the Multi Site movement, many have gone before us, and many are way ahead of us, the Multi Site Pitfalls are simply us sharing our own Multi Site journey. I’m writing this in hopes that something from our journey might somehow help with yours.

As with any ministry someone needs to champion it. When vision is being cast, and plans are being made, someone needs to be there to make sure Multi Site is part of the discussion. Here’s why this is important.

1. When decisions are being made that affect Children’s Ministry, Children’s Ministry at the campuses is affected too.
2. When decisions are being made that affect Student Ministry, Student Ministry is affected at the campuses too.
3. Financial decisions affect all campuses.
4. Decisions about preaching series affect all campuses.
5. Creative decisions affect all campuses.

I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point. The reason you need a Multi Site champion is so there is always someone in those meetings to ask this question, “how will this affect the campuses.” Even with a MS champion in leadership, things still fall through the cracks because the bigger you get, and the more campuses you add, the tougher communication becomes. So even with a MS champion no system is perfect, but at least with a MS champion you’ll know there is someone in a leadership position carrying the torch for off site campuses.

When picking this person make sure they have passion for Multi Site. Just adding this to someone’s plate because they’re the closest warm body, is not the right answer. I believe if God is calling you to go Multi Site, He is also doing something in the heart of the person who will champion it. I say that because that’s exactly how it happened here.

Unpacking Multi Site Pitfall #3

Multi Site Pitfall #3: Picking the Right Leader is Critical to a Campuses Success

Moving on with the Multi Site Pitfalls let’s talk about about why it’s critical to pick the right person to be your campus pastor. When you read this please understand that I don’t for a second think I have figured out the Multi Site puzzle, I’m just sharing with you my personal experiences in leading the BAF Multi Site Ministry.

Why is the Campus Pastor choice critical?

1. Your campus pastor is the carrier of your churches DNA! If your campus pastor does not have your DNA, neither will your campus.
2. Your campus pastor represents your church to the community where it’s located.
3. You are in trusting the future spiritual growth of a group of God’s people to this person.
4. Your campus will not outgrow this persons leadership. John Maxwell calls this the “Law of the Lid.”

What to look for in a Campus Pastor.

1. A great campus pastor is a great leader. The main role of the campus pastor is leadership development, and it takes a leader to develop other leaders.
2. A Campus Pastor must have character. That is one thing that cannot be taught!
3. A Campus Pastor must but be good with people. If the Campus Pastor has no personality, neither will the campus.
4. A great Campus Pastor is fiercely loyal to the vision and direction of the church.
5. A great Campus Pastor is teachable. Great leaders are also great followers.
6. Great Campus Pastors think for themselves and don’t need to be told what to do all the time.
7. Great Campus Pastors are problem solvers. If I have to solve all the problems at a campus, then I have the wrong person leading it.

I wish I had a silver bullet I could share with you that would tell you exactly how to find the person I’m talking about, but its not that easy. But if God has called you to go Multi Site in your church, He will also provide the leaders you’ll need. Start putting potential leaders in leadership positions in your church and see which of them rise to the top, but ultimately each time you put a leader in a high position and give them authority, there is risk involved. Not all your choices will pan out, but those that do, will raise up your next Campus Pastors.

Unpacking Multi Site Pitfall #2

Multi Site Pitfall #2. Going Multi Site will stress your church to its core!

When we started our first site we had no idea the stress it was going to put on our church and staff. Here are some of the areas where Multi Site hit us hard:

1. To start a new campus we felt like we needed to put the project in the hands of a proven leader so we gave it to one of our Management Staff Pastors. He found out quickly this wasn’t something he was adding to his plate, this became his plate. With him focused completely on the new site, which he had to be, things in the other ministries he oversaw paid the price. I firmly believe you need a proven and faithful leader to lead a project like this because that leader is the carrier of your churches DNA.
2. Two of our sites required build outs, and all of it was done with volunteers to keep costs down. A two to four month build out with volunteers will stress your staff and volunteers to their very cores. We just finished a 3 1/2 month build out at our 5 Points Campus that almost killed all of us, and I had a bad to the bone leader in Jason Curlee. I could not have pulled this off without him, because even with him, it still stretched me and my family to their limits.
3. As we began having church it quickly became clear that our already understaffed and over worked administrative team was going to be overwhelmed with the extra responsibilities. Adding a site, a full church folks, requires creating a whole new budget that someone has to manage. Then on top of the budget, that same overworked team, now had a whole new set of bills and expenses they had to take care of. Someone had to handle leases, phones, Internet, water, gas, maintenance, AC, Electric, Cleaning, Insurance, payroll, cleaning supplies and on and on. Those things just didn’t just take care of themselves, someone had to add them to their already stretched responsibilities. And then there was the financial white elephant in the room that we all wish we could have ignored, getting that site up and running was causing money to pour out of the main campus like water through the Hoover Dam. There is a financial cost to going multi site.
4. As any church leader knows, Children’s Ministry is not something you can throw up and just hope for the best. There was no way we were going to intrust the safety and future spiritual growth of all these new children into the hands of untrained people. So the main campus Children’s Ministry had to step up in a huge way. I don’t personally know any churches who have tons of extra staff just standing around waiting for a job to do, so we had to send over trained staff and volunteers from the main campus every weekend for a very long time. Our Management Staff Children’s Pastor was overwhelmed by the added responsibilities, and her volunteer base base at the main campus was stretched big time as well. Because this campus was 45 miles away from our main campus, there were no trained Children’s workers available, so it took a long time, and lot’s of volunteers to get the BA Kidz DNA in place.
5. About six months in we started a Student Ministry, and of course everything we just talked about in Children’s Ministry happened to the Student Pastor and his team.

I was asked to take over the leadership of that campus a little over a year into it, and it was not doing well. The stress it had caused to every ministry in our church was overwhelming. We weren’t really ready to go Multi Site when we did, and we paid a price for it. It was by God’s grace alone that the campus survived, because it was really struggling financially when I took over. I remember a meeting that Pastor Bil and I had shortly after I took over where he calmly but firmly let me know that something needed to be done to solve the problems, and soon.

We were able to turn it around over the next year and it became our model for how not to go Multi Site, and thankfully we did a much better job when we started the next two campuses. Had we known then how much adding a site was going to stress our church to it’s core, we certainly would have done some things differently. In our defense, we had never added a site, and didn’t really know anyone who had, so we just stepped out on faith and moved anyway.

As with all these posts, I am not in any way trying to talk you out of going Multi Site, I love it, I live it, and I believe in it, I simply hope that reading this might help you to be better prepared for the stresses your church will face when adding sites. But if God is calling you, and you have a plan, then go for it, and God will bless your ministry like He has ours. Even when we made mistakes, and we made plenty, He blessed us anyway because He had called us to do this, and He will do the same if He has called you.

Next time we’ll talk about Multi Site Pitfall #3 which is the importance of finding the right leader for a new site.